Endoscopy in the medical fields allows internal features of a patient's body to be viewed without the use of traditional, fully-invasive surgery. Endoscopy is widely used to perform minimally-invasive medical procedures, such as arthroscopy, laparoscopy, gastroscopy, colonoscopy, etc.
A medical endoscopic imaging system includes an endoscope (or simply “scope”), one end of which is inserted into the body of a patient while the other end of the scope is coupled to a video camera. The scope may be a rigid scope, such as used in arthroscopy or laparoscopy, or a flexible scope, such as used in gastroscopy or colonoscopy. Images acquired by the camera are typically provided to, and displayed on, a conventional display device, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT) or liquid crystal display (LCD) based monitor, which displays live or recorded video. A high intensity light source is normally coupled to the scope by a fiber optic cable, to transmit light through the scope to into the patent's body. The camera may also be coupled to various supporting devices, such as a printer, an image capture unit, and a video recorder.
Some modern endoscopic medical imaging systems also include a voice control system (VCS) that provides centralized voice-based control of various devices in the operating room, including those which are part of the endoscopic imaging system. Speech from a user (e.g., the physician) can be input to the VCS through a microphone mounted on a headset worn by the user. The VCS includes an automatic speech recognizer (ASR) to recognize and generate control signals in response to the user's speech and provides a hierarchy of commands that can be spoken to control various devices, such as the video camera, an image capture unit, etc. An example of a VCS with these capabilities is the Stryker Integrated Device Network (SIDNE) system from Stryker Endoscopy of San Jose, Calif.
It would be advantageous to enable more than one person in the operating room to control devices in the operating room with speech. For example, in addition to the physician having that ability, it would be advantageous if an operating room nurse or other assistant could control certain functions of certain devices. This would reduce the workload on the physician by allowing the nurse or assistant to control various non-critical device functions, such as minor video adjustments, etc., while the physician remains in control of more critical functions, such as camera zoom, image capture, etc.
Known existing VCSs do not provide such capability, however. One problem associated with providing this capability is the potential for speech of one user to interfere with speech of another user. In particular, the speech of a nurse or other assistant could interfere with the physician's voice control of the system, which could result in complicating the overall procedure and putting the patient at risk.